Stories would subsequently be ported to iOS and Android devices a year later, and Capcom would even use it to help promote a vehicle crime awareness campaign organized by the Osaka Prefectural Police in 2017. Not too shabby for the smaller Japanese market, but very obviously not the kind of numbers Capcom was hoping for, given that the main series consistently sold in the millions. Monster Hunter Stories would go on to sell just over 300,000 copies at retail over the course of its life. As good as the game was, the audience at large just wasn't interested. Capcom's carefully-crafted merchandising blitz - including a trading card game developed by Bandai - did little to turn its fortunes around in the weeks that followed. Interestingly, another sales tracker, Media Create, reported that Stories had sold primarily to adults, rather than children, meaning it wasn't reaching its intended audience at all. Monster Hunter Stories was an excellent game, and its poor performance in Japan remains one of the great unsolved mysteries of the 2010s When Monster Hunter Stories was released a week after its anime counterpart, video game sales tracker Famitsu reported that it had sold just 215,000 copies in its first eight days on store shelves - quite a bit lower than any industry guru would've predicted. In parallel, Japanese retailers began reporting that the 3DS game was seeing low pre-orders, and that the anime airing simultaneously wasn't doing much to move the needle. would subsequently report that the next several weeks of animated programming were dominated by the usual suspects, with shows like One Piece, Dragon Ball, Yo-kai Watch, and even international shows like Shaun the Sheep, all featuring consistently in the top ten, but no Monster Hunter Stories. Ride On's first episode aired at 8.30am on a Sunday morning - generally considered a prime spot for children's programming - but ratings were low and the show failed to make it into the top ten animated shows for the week. The first signs that Monster Hunter Stories wouldn't set the sales charts on fire came a week prior to the release of the game, when tie-in anime series Monster Hunter Stories: Ride On debuted on Fuji TV. Monster Hunter Stories was perfectly placed for huge success - its failure to find an large audience remains an unsolved mystery In theory, Stories should have ridden the coattails of the main series and introduced the brand to a whole new generation of kids, reaching the kind of demographic that mega-franchises like Pokémon and Dragon Quest enjoyed. Meanwhile, the mainline Monster Hunter series had graduated from the PlayStation Portable to the 3DS, and Monster Hunter 4 was already one of the most popular games on the device. Pokémon, despite its aging audience, was still going strong. Yo-kai Watch was bigger than ever, and had primed the market for more monster-taming games. Most importantly, it was on the Nintendo 3DS, which had a stranglehold on the kids' market in Japan.įor all intents and purposes, Monster Hunter Stories was the perfect game on the perfect platform, being released at the perfect time. It was Pokémon, but with Monster Hunter's well-known and eclectic roster of dragons, giant bugs, and poison-farting baboons. Monster Hunter Stories was the perfect game on the perfect platform, being released at the perfect time It had an anime tie-in on a popular TV channel. It was colourful, visually striking, and promised a wealth of hidden depth to discover. And it was a turn-based RPG, meaning it was approachable enough for anyone that couldn't keep up with the reflex-heavy combat of mainline Monster Hunter. It used the same eye-catching monster designs as the ever-popular main series, but let you buddy up with the monsters instead of mutilating them. It was based on an existing brand that was already immensely popular with a wide age group. When it was announced in 2015, Monster Hunter Stories seemed like the perfect game for the Japanese kids' market.
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